Saturday, April 28, 2007

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007).

And while Nevada continues to be embarrassed by their senator, I am always proud of my Senator, Kit Bond. He has come through again and written an excellent commentary for the KC Star entitled, Democrats focused on winning votes, not war. He takes on Traitor Harry Reid and points out that Democrats are suffering from selective denial:

"Democratic leaders in Congress seem to be suffering selective denial when it comes to a coherent policy on Iraq. So eager are they to capitalize politically on public frustration with the war in the 2008 election that they are ignoring the long-term implications of a withdrawal deadline.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, recently told The Associated Press, “We’re going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.” Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Republicans who did not go along with the pullout will “look extinction … in the eye.”

The political focus sidesteps discussion of a responsible plan to avoid defeat in Iraq and a consequent slaughter in the Middle East if our troops pull out on the Democratic timetable. Most glaring is the absence in Reid’s comments of any recognition that failure in Iraq is a bad thing."

I'm going to be doing some calling to D.C. next week, praising my Senator - and letting everyone else know what I think of all the appeasers in the Senate.

... Dana Priest's February 12, 2003 story in the Washington Post. My point in quoting it is not to show the obvious 'that was then, this is now' attitude of Tenet, but to focus on his seemingly prescient warning about Zarqawi. His was a sober assessment, that however orphaned it may be now, seems in the light of history to have stood up pretty well. I highlight the relevant pieces of the February 2003 pre-war article by Priest.

CIA Director George J. Tenet, questioned about the value of ongoing inspections by the United Nations, said there is "little chance you'll find weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq unless Hussein cooperates with inspectors. On the other hand, Tenet said he would expect U.S. troops "will find caches of weapons of mass destruction, absolutely," were they to invade the country.

There's more; RTWT. This PROVES that Cheney DID NOT "misconstrue" Tenet. Rather, it is Tenet who is NOW LYING.

[ASIDE: Tenet now "teaches" at Georgetown - a BIG beneficiary of ARAB $$$ - Bin Talal gave millions for this. REMEMBER::: GIULIANI TOLD THIS VERY SAME CREEP TO SHOVE IT WHEN HE WANTED TO GIVE NYC MONEY - WITH STRINGS ATTACHED - AFTER 9/11!]

A lost landscape where early humans roamed more than 8,000 years ago has been discovered beneath the British North Sea. A map of the underwater world reveals criss-crossing rivers, giant lakes and gentle hills around which hunter-gatherers made their homes toward the end of the last ice age.

The region was inundated between 18,000 and 6000 BCE, when the warming climate melted the thick glaciers that pressed down from the north. As the water rose, the great plain vanished, and slowly the contours of the British Isles and the north-west European coastline were established. Now the primitive landscape is submerged and preserved, tens of metres beneath one of the busiest seas in the world.

ER, UMM..,.THERE WERE NO SUV'S BACK THEN... SO ER, UM, WHAT HEATED UP THE WORLD'S CLIMATE, CAUSING THE GLACIERS TO MELT?!? HMMMMM. MAYBE THE SUN?!!?

Israeli troops have shot dead at least three members of Hamas' armed wing in a clash on the Gaza-Israel border, Hamas and the Israeli army have said.

The incident took place at about 0830 (0530 GMT), north-west of Gaza City. The Israeli military said four Hamas members were caught trying to plant a bomb on the security barrier between Gaza and Israel and were fired on.

THE MORE BAD GUYS WE KILL THE BETTER. YA THINK THAT SOUNDS ROUGH!? WELL, WAR IS ROUGH. HECK: WAR IS HELL.

IT WOULD BE GREAT NEWS IF THE IDF HAD KILLED MORE, OR IF THEY'D KILLED SOME BIGGIES.

One of the most revealing subplots in the European coup attempt against World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is who is coming to the American's defense. The rich European donor countries want him to resign, while the Africans who are the bank's major clients are encouraging him to stay.

You wouldn't know this from the press coverage, which continues to report selective leaks from the bank staff and European sources who started this P\political putsch. The latest "news" is that the European Parliament has asked Mr. Wolfowitz to resign, thus sustaining that body's reputation for irrelevant put politically correct gestures. If Mr. Wolfowitz leaves, no doubt some of the europols will angle for the job.

The more telling story is the support for the bank president from reform-minded Africans. At a press conference during this month's World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington, four of the more progressive African finance ministers were asked about the Wolfowitz flap. Here's how Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia's finance minister, responded:

"I would say that Wolfowitz's performance over the last several years and his leadership on African issues should certainly feature prominently in the discussions . . . . In the Liberian case and the case of many forgotten post-conflict fragile countries, he has been a visionary. He has been absolutely supportive, responsive, there for us . . . . We think that he has done a lot to bring Africa in general . . . into the limelight and has certainly championed our cause over the last two years of his leadership, and we look forward to it continuing."

Armstrong's book and her attack on Spencer is a typical postmodernist smear. Either she is a dupe, or someone who thinks she can "cleverly" use jihadism to bring the West down a notch - just enough so that she and her fellow-travelers can step in and take over. Idiots.

UPDATE: 6 HOURS LATER AND LGF WEIGHS IN - PROVING ONCE AGAIN THAT WE KICK LGF'S ASS! SPREAD THE WORD! YUP - YOU GOT THAT RIGHT: THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS KICKS CHARLES JOHNSON'S SORRY GENTILE ASS - AND WE DO IT ALL THE EFFIN' TIME!

Australians are very frequent barbecuers and are yet one of the world's longest lived populations -- but little bottom-line facts like that must not detain us, of course. Simplistic theories are so much easier

With the backyard grilling season approaching, medical experts have managed the scientific equivalent of pouring cold water on a pile of fiery briquettes: Grilling and other high-heat cooking methods accelerate aging and several serious health conditions.

How food is cooked turns out to be extremely important, said Helen Vlassara, a professor of medicine and geriatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan. She investigated a relatively new class of toxins called glycation end products, or AGEs, which develop during cooking, particularly when grilling, frying and flame-broiling.

"The highest levels are found in fried chicken, or broiled or grilled meats," Vlassara said.

AGEs, she said, tend to accumulate in the body and have been associated with diabetes and insulin imbalances. But she also sees a strong link between the compounds and aging, Alzheimer's disease, inflammatory disorders, vascular problems and kidney conditions.....

Just recently, "American Thinker" lost their web address to a scamster and got it back only with great difficulty. Now "Front Page" has gone down. It was still down at the time of writing this. I would not have been able to find the article below except that (as a former FrontPage author) I am on David Horowitz's mailing list. I had to substitute in the address "frontpagemagazine" for "frontpagemag".

*******************

The Real Jimmy Carter

By Alan M. Dershowitz (Small excerpt:)

In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the nineteen thirties, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the nineteen thirties was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the twenty-first century has become complicit in evil....

If money determines political and public views as Carter insists "Jewish money" does, Carter's views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Democratic candidates renewed their calls for universal health care during a debate in South Carolina, saying that a new system would help streamline costs and cover the nation's 45 million uninsured. ...

The former New York City mayor, responding to comments in the first Democratic primary debate Thursday night, claimed Democrats favor "mandatory" universal health care and the plans would only exacerbate the cost of care by putting the system in the hands of bureaucrats.

"They're moving toward socialized medicine so fast, it'll make your head spin," Giuliani said, adding that private solutions could help bring down the cost of care. "When we want to cover poor people, as we should, we give them vouchers."

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS HAS COMPILED HUNDREDS OF NIGHTMARISH NEWS-STORIES ABOUT SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE IN THE UK'S NHS.

Joe Lieberman has given an outstanding speech on the Iraq War funding bills now passing through the Senate. The video is about 3 3/4 minutes long and you can view it at Classical Values or at The Astute Bloggers. I highly reccommend it if you can spare the bandwidth. Joe asks why Oct. 1, 2007 was picked as the cut off date.

Well, naturally I have a few ideas about that. I'm sure Joe knows the significance of that date. It is a little more than a month from our 2008 election. The Democrats want badly to get elected and they think that what with their rabid anti-war base and a general population that gets the war on Islamic Fascism and the importance of Iraq as a theater of that war, they have to get the war off people's minds before the election. So they have to calculate how late they can force the withdrawal and yet not have a full scale civil war in Iraq on election day.

Now we know that the Islamics really like the Democrats. They say so. The withdrawal gets a lot of praise. So I would expect as a quid pro quo from the Islamics that they will hold off on attacks for the most part especially from the withdrawal date until after the election once a date certain for withdrawal has been set.

In other words I think the Democrats with all their recent toing and frowing in the Middle East have brokered a sell out of America and Iraq. They went direct to upper management. No fooling around with intermediaries or cut outs who might screw the deal or want too big a cut. Nope. Right to the top. When it comes to the Culture of Corruption I think the Republicans with their Jack Abramoff type scandals were pikers. They were only selling out one segment of the American people to another. These folks are selling out America to foreign powers. And not retail like Dubai Ports or similar examples. These folks are offering a package deal at wholesale rates. The scope is breathtaking. The chutzpah stupendous.

Miriam Ramos sports low-heeled shoes to go grocery shopping these days because with basic food staples becoming harder to find in Venezuela, she knows she's in for a hike.

On grocery store shelves, products from sugar to eggs have been particularly scarce. Supporters and opponents of President Hugo Chavez disagree on the causes, but the result is the same: a frustrating shopping trip for many.

"This is a disaster — there are no eggs, there's no powdered milk, nothing," said Ramos, a 69-year-old retiree, visibly upset. "I need skim milk but because I can't find any, I'm drinking calcium with water. This is like Cuba."

In what may be a major breakthrough, the Pentagon said that US forces had captured Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi-born al-Qa'ida commander high on the most-wanted list of terrorists. He has been transferred to the top security prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A Pentagon spokesman said Al-Iraqi was transferred to Defence Department custody this week from the Central Intelligence Agency, but he refused to say where, when and how he was seized. ... The Pentagon spokesman said the captured terrorist was trying to return to his native country to manage al-Qa'ida's affairs there and possibly co-ordinate operations outside Iraq against Western targets.

So... which country was he coming from? Turkey? Syria? Jordan? Kuwait? OR IRAN ? Which one(s) would be most likely to be aiding al Qaeda? Would Osama likely still be there?

IT'S LONG PAST TIME DUBYA STARTED LIVING UP TO THE BUSH DOCTRINE AND STARTED PUNISHING THE NATIONS WHICH AID THE TERRORISTS.

WHICHEVER NATION GAVE SAFE-HAVEN TO AL IRAQI SHOULD BE PUNISHED - KINETICALLY IF NECESSARY.

According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq,” and opposition is up from 58% in February. (3/23-25, 2007).

A Bloomberg poll reveals 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea (3/3-11, 2007).

A recent Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll found that 56% of registered voters favor fully funding the war in Iraq, with more voters strongly favoring funding (40%) than totally opposing it (38%); (3/25-27, 2007).

POS found also that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested (3/25-27, 2007).

A separate POS poll finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and “the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.” And 59% of voters say pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America’s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored (35%); (2/5-7, 2007).

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007).

According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007). That same poll found a plurality of adults (45%) believe a terrorist attack against the United States is more likely if we withdraw our troops from Iraq while the “country remains unstable”

Should a date for withdrawal be set, 70% of American believe it is likely that “insurgents will increase their attacks in Iraq” starting on that day. This is supported by 85% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, 4/17-18, 2007).

An LA Times/Bloomberg polls reveals that 50% of Americans say setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq “hurts” the troops, while only 27% believe it “helps” the troops (4/5-9, 2007).

DEMOCRATS ARE WRONG TO THINK THEY CAN PICK UP SEATS BY HANDING AL QAEDA A BIG WIN IN IRAQ.

Journalists did Hezbollah's work, offering little resistance to the Islamic militia's effort to portray itself as an idealistic and heroic army of the people, facing an aggressive and ruthless enemy. With Hezbollah's unchallenged control of journalists' access within its territory, it managed to almost completely eliminate from the narrative crucial facts, such as the fact that it deliberately fired its weapons from deep within civilian population centers, counting on Israeli forces to have no choice but defend themselves by targeting rocket launchers where they stood. Hezbollah's strong support from Syria and Iran -- including the provision of deadly weapons -- faded in the coverage, as the conflict increasingly became portrayed as pitting one powerful army against a band of heroic defenders of a civilian population. Gradually lost in the coverage was the fact that the war began when Hezbollah infiltrated Israel, kidnapping two of its soldiers (still held to this day) and killing eight Israelis. Despite the undisputed fact that Hezbollah triggered the war, Israel was painted as the aggressor, as images of the war overtook the context.

You should read the whole thing. It's almost a point by point summary of the complaints that were circulating around the blogosphere during the war - differences in media restrictions, transparent Hezbollah manipulation, minimization of Hezbollah war crimes, etc. The results were predictable, but the numbers are still a little shocking - the imbalance is quantitatively shocking, to say nothing of undeniable. Although in fairness to Western reporters, they were just mindlessly parroting what Hezbollah told them. How were they supposed to know not to trust people who fire rockets at civilian population centers from civilian population centers.

On any other day, we wouldn't dare to pester you with this totally meaningless story - the result of what happens when you let inconsequential moonbats off the reservation. But it's Friday, so the humor value trumps the total lack of anything compelling or newsworthy:

After a series of delays, late in the day on Wednesday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a candidate for president in 2008, announced a series of charges against Vice President Dick Cheney in Washington, DC. Kucinich alleged that the Vice President had committed a series of impeachable offenses and stated that he was therefore introducing Articles of Impeachment against Cheney in the Congress today.

Kucinich started off by reading the opening words of the Declaration of Independence, commenting that they were "instructive at this moment." "Whenever any government official becomes destructive of the founding purposes, that official must be held accountable," he said.

It's nice that he found himself a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Now if we could only get Democrats to actually read the Constitution, we'd be halfway toward creating a utopia of harmonious bipartisanship. What an idiot.

Oh hey, before we forget - let's get some more Democrats into office. Maybe we can all work together to make Kucinich into a nationally prominent and powerful figure. That'll be days and days of blogging material. Then our eyes and ears will start bleeding, and we'll be sad.

I suffer from a chronic iatrogenic illness. As would be clear to everyone who knows his Greek, iatrogenic illness is illness caused by what doctors do. Usually it is illness caused as a side-effect of medication. As far as we know, iatrogenic illness is universal. All medications have side-effects. The iron law of medication is: "No side effects = No main effects". If we banned all medications that had side effects we would have no medications.

But the hysteria over side-effects never lets up for all that. Aspirin was once thought to be very safe but it does appear to cause some bleeding in the stomach EVERY time is it used. So despite aspirin's very great benefits and the long recognized great safety of it, doctors everywhere for a long time would recommend it only with the greatest hesitation. For routine pain relef they would generally recommend paracetamol instead. We now find, however that paracetamol causes liver damage. The neurosis about small but generally harmless side effects in aspirin has, in other words, exposed people to SERIOUS side effects in paracetamol.

So, as blind Freddy should be able to see, it is the tradeoff that is important. Side-effects that are very rare or side effects that cause little harm should be disregarded if the medication provides significant benefit.

You would think that doctors, of all people, would recognize that and maybe many family doctors do, but many medical researchers certainly do not. If they see a side effect that is found in only one in a thousand people, they will rush to press with warnings not to use that medication. And that is doubly absurd when we realize that very rare effects may be random events anyway. A rare side-effect may not be a side effect at all. If one woman in a thousand is said to get cancer out of taking HRT, what are we to make out of the 999 women who did NOT get cancer from it? Surely they prove that HRT does NOT cause cancer!

And most of the unending stream of scare stories rely on an assumption that is KNOWN to be false. They conclude from a correlation between two things that the correlation indicates causation. Because some studies have found a very slight correlation between taking HRT and getting cancer, for instance, the hysterics claim that HRT causes cancer. Yet "Correlation is not causation" is just about the first thing anyone learns in a course on statistics. For instance, recent history indicates that people have both been living longer and getting fatter. Getting fatter and living longer are correlated. So does getting fatter prolong life? To be consistent the hysterics would have to claim that! That women who take HRT might tend to have more health anxieties to start with and that those anxieties (whether justified or not) might be the problem (if there is a problem) is just not considered.

There is no such ambiguity in the case of real iatrogenic disasters of course. How many women who took thalidomide during the critical periods of gestation delivered normal babies? Not many. How many people who in their youth were frequently given old-fashioned medications containing arsenic (as I was) are now free of skin cancer? Not many.

So we should ignore the attention seekers who are constantly pretending that tiny fluctuations in their statistics reveal iatrogenic disasters going on. There will of course be real iatrogenic disasters in the future (Thalidomide was approved by many national health authorities) but listening to the attention-seekers will just deflect us from gaining the real benefits that medication can also deliver.

"A group of British climate scientists is demanding changes to a skeptical documentary about global warming, saying there are grave errors in the program billed as a response to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." "The Great Global Warming Swindle" aired on British television in March and is coming out soon on DVD. It argues that man-made emissions have a marginal impact on the world's climate and warming can better be explained by changing patterns of solar activity.

An open letter sent Tuesday by 38 scientists, including the former heads of Britain's academy of sciences and Britain's weather office, called on producer Wag TV to remove what it called "major misrepresentations" from the film before the DVD release -- a demand its director said was tantamount to censorship.

Maybe you should view the film now in case they do get it censored. Al Gore's film would be a much better candidate for censorship if you are talking about misrepresentation. What would YOU say about a film that shows only retreating glaciers and none of the advancing ones? Science it aint.

Goldie Hawn does not look to have done much high profile work in the movie business of late, but as with many other stars has found that doing TV adverts in other countries is a way of making a living, and quite reasonably too. However, an advert for Swedish retailer KappAhl has got her into hot water with an unholy trinity of politicians from the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Communist party successor, the Left Party.

And what terrible thing has she done? Been rude to Abba, encouraged racism or said something thoughtful about the Iraq war? Nope. This is what the Social Democrat took exception to:

"It's an ad where a young girl is really depressed because her boyfriend has just broken up with her. Goldie Hawn, who is an actress, encourages her to indulge in some comfort shopping. "We think that because there are so many people with shopping problems it's not a good idea to encourage people to practice comfort shopping". Source

That complete denial of the ability of consumers to make their own choices when faced with an encouragement by a famous face to do something is diabolical, but it gets worse. Much worse.

"The politician was then asked whether the group's stance was not simply critical of advertising in general. After all, is not the point of marketing to get people to shop?

"Yes, maybe so. I'll have to think about that. It was so obvious in this particular ad".

So there you have it - even the comparatively moderate Swedish left dislikes advertising, based not on serious thought, but rather gut dislike. It would be pointless to note that advertising is rather more than TV commercials and billboards, it is also the sign above a shop, the design of a Coke can, a few lines on Craig's List selling your car and so on and so forth. Freedom of speech has to include commercial speech, otherwise we could all die of ignorance....

Jonathan Tobin talks about how Andrea Elliot, one of the New York Times' many low-grade journalists, was awarded a Pulitizer prize for writing a fluff-coated article on an imam and mosque who preached murder, while leaving out a lot of important details.

The NYT and the Pulitizer almost seem to go hand-in-hand. And the latter is just as worthless a prize as the Nobel across the ocean in Norway.

Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu called upon English-speaking Israelis on Thursday to take action to overthrow Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government.

Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Likud's new Anglo division at the party's Tel Aviv headquarters, Netanyahu said that immigrants from English-speaking countries brought new ideas, dynamism and dedication to Israel.

"There's a tradition of activism in the English-speaking countries that's deeply embedded in you," Netanyahu told a packed audience. "If you are activists, what you need to do now is to act to bring about new elections to replace this government."

English-speakers do seem to have some influence in Israel, so I think I can see the point in this launch.

A 22-year-old Jewish woman suffered a vicious anti-Semitic attack by two men of Middle Eastern appearance in a train station in Marseille, France on Thursday night.

The attackers tore the Star of David chain from around the young woman's neck, lifted up her shirt, painted a swastika on her stomach and then fled the scene.

Local police opened an investigation into the attack but had not yet found the assailants.

Head of the Jewish Agency delegation in France, David Roche, said the incident was the most severe anti-Semitic attack in France since the murder of the young Jewish male Ilan Halimi by a gang of Muslim youths in February 2006.

In response to the attack, Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Bielski released a statement saying that specifically during the course of the largest display of democracy France has known in many years "this barbaric act" is carried out.

"We are doing our utmost so that the issue of the fight against anti-Semitism will top the agenda of the candidates for the presidency and of the candidate who is elected," continued the statement.

Marseille is one of the worst places where you've got Muslims in France. It doesn't surprise me that it could happen there.

That is a truly novel approach to politics. Except when it comes to Obama's friend Antoin "Tony'' Rezko. Tony is a high powered developer of slum property with friends in City Hall.

Well you know how it is in Chicago politics. Sometimes silence is better than an insurance policy. A life insurance policy. Which only pays off after you are dead.

For five long weeks, Sun-Times' investigative reporter Tim Novak called, e-mailed, requested, practically pleaded with Obama's press people to provide information about the senator's relationship to Rezko when it came to the development of low-income housing in Chicago. In an abundance of fairness and an excess of solicitousness, Novak sent a list of questions.

For five weeks, no answer.

I have a lot more on the Obama/Rezko connection and how Rezko the slum lord (on Chicago's dime) destroyed the housing stock in poor neighborhoods at city and Federal expense at Power and Control.

I had a woman come on my blog this past week to comment on my post on Bill Moyers' Propaganda piece. It is your standard lecture with the theme of "Can't we all just be nice and get along?" It always sounds so noble and impressive until you take a closer look. There are many people who think like her and I think her arguments need to be examined so we can think about what the real consequences are of this way of thinking.

To read my response to her go here! I point out that I'm not pro-death penalty and pro-war but pro-Justice!!

[Fomer GOP Senator and Clinton Secretary of Defense] Cohen arrived in Israel Wednesday night after visiting a number of Gulf states, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as Jordan.

Cohen said that during his talks with leaders in those counties he heard "sentiments" acknowledging that Iran was the greatest threat to stability in the Middle East and no longer Israel. ...

"They understand that Iran is a threat to them all," he said. "There is a convergence of interest evolving and you can find that Israel is not being seen as the adversary. ... They are not yet ready to announce diplomatic relations with Israel but the sentiment is shifting and they understand that Iran is the major threat to them and not Israel."

This is good, but will the shift come in time... before Iran has nukes!?!?

I remember hearing a Muslim man call into a radio show a few months back, very angry that the host dared to use the term "Islamofascist."

"Islam is not fascist," he repeatedly told the host.

Meanwhile, of course, the host attempted to explain to the man that he wasn't saying Islam was fascist, but was, instead, making a distinction between ordinary moderate Muslims, and those who would wage Jihad to kill the infidel.

The man just couldn't get it. It was as if he was constitutionally incapable of understanding the distinction.

Anyway, for those Muslims who are thick, and unable to understand the distinction, I thought I'd attempt here to lay it out in stark terms.

First, understand that we Infidels are human beings, just like you. We don't like to be murdered. We don't like our women to be taken as booty and raped (as Islamofascists do to non-Muslim women in Sudan). We don't like to have our churches and synagogues burned down. Got that?Should be pretty simple.

Now, let's be clear about the definition of an Islamofascist. You are an Islamofascist if you:

1) believe there are two camps to the world, Dar al-Harb (House of War), and Dar al-Islam (House of Islam).2) believe in waging violent Jihad against the Infidels and the Jews.3) believe that women are equal to half and man, and that your wife is your possession to do with what you please, including murdering her for "dishonoring" your family.4) want to see Sharia law instituted all over the world, so that adulterers, apostates, and homosexuals are stoned to death for their "crimes."5) want women to wear Burqas (for anything other than the occasional kinky bedroom play).

So, there you have it. Do you fall into any of those categories? If you do, I want you to leave my country now. Or, if you were born here and as such, enjoy an American citizenship for which you are not grateful, then please, pray to God that He will forgive you, and straighten your mind out, so that you can learn to let people love and live as they will.

Now, here is the definition of a moderate Muslim. You are a moderate Muslim if you

1) believe that all people should be able to live in peace and be free to speak, worship, and live as they please, as long as they do not physically hurt anyone, or steal the property of others.2) allow for Freedom of Speech, even up to the criticism and mockery of your own religion in the media, and in the streets.3) just want to work a job, earn money, and take care of your family, and are happy to see others of all religions and ethnicities, doing the same around you everyday.

There, now if you fit into that, then we have no problems, you and I.

However, if you are a moderate Muslim who is

1) willing to tolerate the preaching of violent Jihad in your mosque, and you still give money and attend services,2) would not turn in Muslims who are planning to kill and maim Infidels,3) believe the Jews were behind 9/11,then you are not a moderate Muslim at all. Instead, you are simply an Islamofascist pussy who lacks the courage of your convictions,

this, then I ask you, once again, to please leave our country, or, perhaps, to pray that God would forgive you, and straighten out your mind, so that you can learn to live and love, and let others live and love.

I hope we are clear now.

Ultimately, it is up to Muslims how we in the West eventually will come to define Islam. Will you tell us, by your works, that Islam is Islamofascism, or that Islam is peace.

It's up to you.Reliapundit adds: BRILLIANT post Pasto! I found these to further illustrate your point:

THEIR ACTIONS TODAY AND THEIR POSITION ON WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ IS UNCONSCIONABLE.

REMEMBER FOLKS, WARS ARE NOT ENDED BY FIAT - OR WITHDRAWAL.WAR ARE EITHER WON, OR THEY ARE LOST.THE DEMOCRAT WITHDRAWAL PLAN WILL NOT "END THE WEAR" - AS THEY CLAIM.IT WILL LOSE THE WAR, AND HAND IRAQ TO IRAN AND AL QAEDA, (JUST AS CNN'S MICHAEL WARE SAYS).THAT WOULD BE A DISASTER FOR THE IRAQIS, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND THE FREE WORLD.NEVERTHELESS, IT'S EXACTLY WHAT THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS ARE PUSHING.WHICH MAKES THEM DESPICABLE - ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT THEY DID NOT RUN ON A PARTY-PLATFORM WHICH DEMANDED A TIMETABLE FOR WITHDRAWAL.WHICH MAKES HIM AND ALL OF THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS LYING, DEFEATIST, TRAITOROUS SCUM.

A clause inserted on page 72 of the Pelosi Surrender Bill mandates a 15 day waiting period before any US units can be moved into the Iraqi theatre. That's right - a 15 day waiting period. Why not just send them into action wearing panty hose and carrying purses?

For example, should US hostages be taken and a Delta Force team moved from outside the theater to attempt a rescue, Pelosi’s provision would require a fifteen-day waiting period and a report to Congress before the rescue could be attempted. Should a Zarqawi level target be located and U.S. fighter aircraft be deployed from outside Iraq, the same fifteen days would elapse before a strike could be executed.

The very nature of the “notice and wait” requirement illustrates how unfamiliar Democrats are with the war against terrorists. This is a new era involving rapid movement of specialized personnel and equipment across theater boundaries. “Notice and wait for two weeks” reflects an ultimate misunderstanding of U.S. military operations.

An Iraqi government spokesman criticized the U.S. Senate vote to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by Oct. 1.

"We see some negative signs in the decision because it sends wrong signals to some sides that might think of alternatives to the political process," Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press.

He spoke after the Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1. The House passed the same bill a day earlier...

PUT ANOTHER WAY, IF WE KEEP THE MILITARY PRESSURE HIGH, THEN IT IS MORE LIKELY THAT THE "INSURGENTS" WILL REALIZE THEY WOULD BE BETTER OFF SEEKING COMPROMISE USING POLITICAL MEANS.

REID AND PELOSI AND THE DEFEATIST DEMS ARE THEREFORE NOT ONLY AIDING THE ENEMY; THEY ARE UNDERMINING THE POSSIBILITY FOR THE IRAQIS FACTIONS AND PARTIES TO MAKE A POLITICAL COMPROMISE - AND A POLITICAL COMPROMISE IS --- ACCORDING TO REID AND PETRAEUS --- ULTIMATELY THE ONLY WAY THE INSURGENCY WILL BE ENDED.

AND REID AND PELOSI AND THE DEFEATIST DEMOCRATS ARE UNDERMINING THAT POSSIBILITY. THEY ARE ACTUALLY PROLONGING THE WAR.

IDIOTS.

AND THE FACT THAT REID SAID HE WOULD NOT DO THIS AS RECENTLY AS JANUARY MEANS HE IS A LIAR, TOO. A LYING, TRAITOROUS IDIOT.

Some of [this fury at Israel] no doubt reflects frustration from the efforts of Jewish organizations to suffocate any criticism of Israel and to hurl the epithet "anti-Semite" at anyone with an odd bent to his thinking.

We hereby call bullshit and shenanigans on this nonsense. Bullshit because nobody does this. Shenanigans because we're getting a little bit tired of this fetishistic journalistic urge to "acknowledge" that pro-Israel organizations are in control of public discourse about Israel. It kind of hurts to have to point it out: the very fact that journalists are always talking about how pro-Israel organizations stifle criticism of Israel is logically necessary evidence that pro-Israel organizations do not control public discussion. Now conspiracy theory lunatics can always answer this point by theorizing that the Israel Lobby allows criticism of itself so that people won't know how truly in control it is. But that sort of paranoia can get you locked up in the loony bin - and should get you locked up.

We long ago resigned ourselves to institutional academics getting together in their sandboxes, building their little castles, and defending themselves from the evil Israel Lobby that's trying to "exclude their voices". The irony, of course, is that it's actually pro-Israel advocates who routinely get excluded from academic discussions. But what's happening at Brown reaches new lows of brazen hypocrisy. Middle East scholars have organized a workshop to attack the Israel Lobby, national security specialists, and people like Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer - except they didn't invite defenders of the Israel Lobby, national security specialists, or Dr. Pipes and Dr. Kramer. The punch line? The workshop is about "open discourse and academic freedom".

Today, at a meeting of [pro-Israel] groups on [Brown's] campus, we found out that... Brown's Middle East Studies Department (which currently offers no courses...) and what is essentially the IR department, with the support of the Muslim Students Association, organized an "academic" conference called "The Study of the Middle East and Islam: Challenges after 9-11," featuring (among others) Juan Cole and Stephen Walt. There are no pro-Israel speakers, and neither Hillel nor Brown Students for Israel were even asked for input on a conference about the future of Middle East Studies. Needless to say, this is not the kind of thing we want on our campus.... We're determined not to let this conference go by without making it clear to the University that this disregard of academic standards/norms and disrespect for Brown's Jewish community is not acceptable.

The conference was organized by Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Elliott Colla. The goal is to "foster a greater understanding in this country of the Middle East and Muslim world." And wouldn't you know it, the people who are preventing greater understanding are security specialists and pro-Israel academics: "new national security regulations", "pressures from concerned citizen groups", "Congressional oversight of college courses pertaining to the Middle East and Islam", "independent efforts to monitor such courses and publicly vilify instructors deemed to be promoting 'dangerous' views in the classroom". You can get the full agenda off the Mere Rhetoric server here.

Here's the thing though: this conference is bait. No one is actually coming here to learn anything.

Without mentioning names, Senator Joe Lieberman delivered a rebuttal in the pages of the Washington Post this morning to his Democrat colleagues in the Senate. It's time for the Senator from Connecticut to do what must be done...caucus with the Republicans.

Many will compare this to the Jim Jeffords defection, but they couldn't be more different. Jeffords was never a Republican in his heart and his turn was an effort to get more power in the Senate and bring home the bacon to his state. It also led to much fawning by the MSM, which far too many Republicans covet. That's not to say Lieberman is a saint, but his reasoning, should he defect, would be of much importance than G-ddamned dairy subsidies. No one is expecting Joe to suddenly vote like Jesse Helms on all issues, he's still a liberal and we all know it. But on this one important issue, the most important issue, he's on the money. It's time to do the right thing and stop this madness in it's track.

"The chancellor at N.C. Central University has taken the unusual step of publicly criticizing an opinion column in the student newspaper that advocates violence. The column in the April 18 issue of the Campus Echo bears the headline "Death to all rapists" and rips into the resolution of the Duke lacrosse case, in which three white athletes accused of sexually assaulting a black dancer were recently declared innocent.

Solomon Burnette, a Durham native, wrote that blacks cannot get a fair shake under the current American justice system and should thus stand up and fight, "whether intellectually, artistically or physically." ....

Burnette, 27, is a senior history major and the son of former City Council member Brenda Burnette. In 2000 and 2001, he served a 13-month prison sentence after pleading no contest to charges of robbing two Duke students at gunpoint and then violating the terms of his probation.

A white student has just got to say something that suggests a recognition of racial differences to be in big trouble. If a white student had said anything like the thug above he would be out of the university on his ear by now. Instead all the university authorities did was to tut, tut and cluck, cluck.

One can only hope that the thug above does NOT graduate and get into a position of responsibility. If he did he would make the disgusting Nifong look like a paragon of objectivity.

Mr. Taleb is fascinated by the rare but pivotal events that characterize life in the power-law world. He calls them Black Swans, after the philosopher Karl Popper's observation that only a single black swan is required to falsify the theory that "all swans are white" even when there are thousands of white swans in evidence. Provocatively, Mr. Taleb defines Black Swans as events (such as the rise of the Internet or the fall of LTCM) that are not only rare and consequential but also predictable only in retrospect. We never see them coming, but we have no trouble concocting post hoc explanations for why they should have been obvious. Surely, Mr. Taleb taunts, we won't get fooled again. But of course we will.

Writing in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne, Mr. Taleb divides the world into those who "get it" and everyone else, a world partitioned into heroes (Popper, Hayek, Yogi Berra), those on notice (Harold Bloom, necktie wearers, personal-finance advisers) and entities that are dead to him (the bell curve, newspapers, the Nobel Prize in Economics).

A humanist at heart, Mr. Taleb ponders not only the effect of Black Swans but also the reason we have so much trouble acknowledging their existence. And this is where he hits his stride. We eagerly romp with him through the follies of confirmation bias (our tendency to reaffirm our beliefs rather than contradict them), narrative fallacy (our weakness for compelling stories), silent evidence (our failure to account for what we don't see), ludic fallacy (our willingness to oversimplify and take games or models too seriously), and epistemic arrogance (our habit of overestimating our knowledge and underestimating our ignorance).

For anyone who has been compelled to give a long-term vision or read a marketing forecast for the next decade, Mr. Taleb's chapter excoriating "The Scandal of Prediction" will ring painfully true. "What is surprising is not the magnitude of our forecast errors," observes Mr. Taleb, "but our absence of awareness of it." We tend to fail--miserably--at predicting the future, but such failure is little noted nor long remembered. It seems to be of remarkably little professional consequence.

I suspect that part of the explanation for this inconsistency may be found in a study of stock analysts that Mr. Taleb cites. Their predictions, while badly inaccurate, were not random but rather highly correlated with each other. The lesson, evidently, is that it's better to be wrong than alone.

If we accept Mr. Taleb's premise about power-law ascendancy, we are left with a troubling question: How do you function in a world where accurate prediction is rarely possible, where history isn't a reliable guide to the future and where the most important events cannot be anticipated?

Mr. Taleb presents a range of answers--be prepared for various outcomes, he says, and don't rush for buses--but it's clear that he remains slightly vexed by the world he describes so vividly. Then again, beatific serenity may not be the goal here. As Mr. Taleb warns, certitude is likely to be found only in a fool's (bell-curve) paradise, where we choose the comfort of the "precisely wrong" over the challenge of the "broadly correct." Beneath Mr. Taleb's blustery rhetoric lives a surprisingly humble soul who has chosen to follow a demanding and somewhat lonely path.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place. Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway. ... The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

THE WHOLE DAMN THING IS A FREAKIN' SCAM: FOR CROOKED "CARBON CREDIT" BROKERS, AND FOR LEFTIST YEARNING TO RAISE TAXES AND STIFLE INDUSTRIAL GROWTH.

Only hours after Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, told lawmakers that he needed more time to gauge the effectiveness of a troop buildup there, the House voted 218 to 208 pass a measure that sought the removal of most combat forces by next spring.

THIS VOTE PROVES THAT THE DEM DOVES ARE A BUNCH OF FRIGGIN' BDS-AFFLICTED DEFEATISTS.

PELOSI DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE COURTESY TO MEET WITH PETRAEUS. SHE IS TOTAL SCUM.

AND LOOK AT THE PROPAGANDA-STYLE PHOTO OF PETRAEUS THE LEFT-WING NYTIMES RAN: SHEESH; THEY TILTED IT SO THAT PETRAEUS LOOKS LIKE HE'S GOING DOWN.

THIS IS A DAY EVERY BIT AS DISGUSTING AND MORALLY WRONG AS THE DAY THE SCOTUS DECIDED DRED SCOTT.

TYPICALLY, THE DEMOCRATS HAVE NO SHAME. THEY WANT TO WALKING AWAY FROM IRAQ THE WAY THEY WALKED AWAY FROM SOUTH VIETNAM - AND THE WAY TEDDY WALKED AWAY FROM MARY JO.

So far the owner of Coyote Organics and I will judge the contest (I may add one or two other judges as I corral them). The decision of the judges is final. If the judges can't come to a decision, my decision is final.

The contest will extend for thirty days from the first submission. I may extend that deadline (it will be announced at Power and Control) if there are no suitable submissions.

"The riots in Paris are exposing the very soft underbelly of Europe. Economic malaise, government failure, and an emasculated response to violence have all played a part in the rampages and destruction of property."

The Paris Intifada: A Cycle of Violence -- The comments section over at Little Green Footballs is just smokin' with good one and two-liners about the Paris Intifada - [and CUANAS HAS CULLED A FEW GEMS!]

These two posts led me to a EUREKA moment: what France needs is a RUDY - someone to come down hard on the thugs and set HIGH STANDARDS for public behavior; to be intolerant of intolerable behavior.

As I posted before: the root cause of this latest display of "social unrest" is NOT racism and discrimination and the "just grievances" of a wronged group of people, (as the MSM would have you believe).

The actual root causes are the EXACT OPPOSITE: (1) THE INDULGENCE OF BAD BEHAVIOR BY THE LEFT (over decades); and (2) a generation POISONED BY A HATE-FILLED IDEOLOGY: ISLAMOFASCISM.

When NYC was being savaged by rampant crime and by OVER-INDULGED THUGS RAMPAGING IN THE STREETS WITH NO FEAR OF REPRISALS for more on the CROWN HEIGHTS RIOTS click HERE and HERE) - and the subtle bigotry of low expections - Rudy Giuliani RESCUED the city: he demanded EVERYONE obey the law, or get arrested. IT WORKED.

PARIS NEEDS A RUDY! THE FRENCH NEED A RUDY!

If the French have anyone who can be their Rudy, I think it is Sarkozy. If he can't completely tackle the problem now, maybe he can when he's elected president in 2007? I hope so!

How do you say "Rudy Giuliani" in French? The answer is Nicolas Sarkozy, the brash conservative politician expected to lead the field in today's first round of national balloting in France, culminating in a May 6 runoff to decide the presidency. ... How ironic, then, that the official conservative candidate, Mr. Sarkozy, is the one most likely to shake up the sclerotic system.

He's a scrappy, even arrogant outsider who speaks his mind – and he's given a stiff dose of Thatcherite straight talk about economic reform to the cosseted French. He talks up the U.S. work ethic, and when asked last fall by a French interviewer what it felt like to be called a "friend of the Americans," Mr. Sarkozy said, "That flatters me.

For a French politician, this is heresy. So why is he so popular? For the same reason Mr. Giuliani won in liberal New York: Because Mr. Sarkozy knows what ailing France desperately needs and has the personal audacity to push it through. Yet his damaging instinct for provocation makes him a divisive figure, just as Mayor Giuliani was. ... A Sarkozy presidency would benefit the United States, and not simply because French foreign policy would take a more Atlanticist turn. Mr. Sarkozy's dynamism likely offers the best chance of reinvigorating the French economy. A strong France means a strong ally and trading partner leading Europe.

THIS PROVES ONCE AGAIN, THAT T.A.B. IS THE PLACE TO BE FOR THE BEST IN NEWS WITH HARD-HITTING AND ORIGINAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY.

The head of the Democratic Party said Wednesday that the best way to get presidential candidates to talk frankly about issues is to lock out the media.

During the Mortgage Bankers Association conference, a banker expressed frustration with candidates who only talk in sound bites and wondered how that could be changed. Howard Dean, once a presidential candidate, offered a simple solution.

"I suggest you have candidates in to meetings like this and bar the press," Dean said.

What an idiot Dean is. Doesn't he think before he opens his mouth? I love the guy. He's good for our side.

Anyway, my suggestion to Dean is, and this is only offered because I know it will never get back to him, instead of barring the press, he ought to try taking the press down to the bar.